Reds send RHP Michael Lorenzen to Triple-A Louisville

With the news that left hander John Lamb is being called up for his Major League debut tonight against the Dodgers, it was also announced later on Thursday night that Michael Lorenzen would be sent down to Triple-A Louisville.

Lorenzen began the season in Triple-A, but after just three starts made the jump to the big leagues on April 29th. He would allow three solo home runs in five innings with a walk and five strikeouts.

While his ERA in May was 2.63 here were some concerns about the performance. In 27.1 innings pitched the right hander walked 18 batters and had just 13 strikeouts. He limited the runs, thanks in large part to a BABIP of .195 and the ability to keep the ball in the yard as he gave up just two home runs on the month. Walking more batters than you strike out is never a way to find continued success and his strikeout rate was very low.

In June the right hander saw his ERA go up to 3.72 on the month, but he did see some improvements in the walk and strikeout departments. Lorenzen tossed 29.0 innings with 14 walks and 21 strikeouts. The walk rate was still higher than you’d like to see it, at 10.8% or 4.3 walks per 9 innings pitched. The strikeout rate rose, but was still a little bit low.

July was a rough one for Lorenzen. In five starts he posted an ERA of 8.61 over 23.0 innings. Along with that ERA he walked 14 batters and had 20 strikeouts. The walk rate jumped up to 12.6% or 5.5 batters per 9 innings pitched. His strikeout rate also jumped up on the month, posting a season best rate of 7.8 strikeouts per 9 innings.

The rookie only made two starts in August and posted a 14.21 ERA thanks in large part to allowing seven runs in 1.1 innings on the 11th against the Padres. In the 6.1 innings he did pitch over the two starts he had six walks and six strikeouts.

Let’s take a look at the stats at the big league level over the season:

Looking at the splits and the overall numbers two things jump out. A high walk rate and a low strikeout rate. Pitchers can be successful with one or the other, but both can’t happen and see a pitcher continue to find success.

Finding a way to throw more strikes and lowering his walk rate would be the biggest way to find more success. Getting the walk rate into the single digits would be a big step in the right direction, but his strikeout rate could also use a bump up. Lowering the walk rate is more important, but both would be beneficial.

Let’s take a look at his four pitches and how they rank compared to the other pitchers in baseball. For this, we are looking at Fangraphs weighted values per 100 pitches thrown and only looking at pitchers with at least 50.0 innings pitched this season (giving us 190 pitchers in the sample, but let’s also note that not all 190 pitchers throw every pitch and thus we have different rankings within each pitch).

The slider is the lone above-average offering that Michael Lorenzen has thrown this season. The other three offerings rank very low among all starters in baseball. At face value, that doesn’t look good. But when a pitch isn’t a strike, it does factor into these values, so it may not be as bad as it seems at face value in terms the quality of the pitch and could be partially related to the struggles to find the strikezone.

With his time in Louisville there will be plenty of things to work on for the 23-year-old right hander. The biggest will be throwing more strikes, as that is currently the biggest weakness on his resume at the big league level. Improving the fastball, curveball and change up would also help out some, though as noted above, the values of those could simply be related to the control issues.